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Pilot (The X-Files)
Dana Scully is assigned to work with Fox Mulder, an FBI agent with an interest in the paranormal. Together, they travel to Oregon where Mulder believes several teenagers have been abducted by aliens. Summary Teaser Dressed in a nightgown, a young woman scrambles through a darkened forest at night. She stumbles into a small clearing and sees an immense light growing over a nearby hill. As the leaves surrounding her swirl up in a circle around her, a figure approaches from the light. The figure stands over her as the light engulfs them both. COLLUM NATIONAL FOREST, NORTHWEST OREGON The next morning, Detective Miles and Coroner John Truitt inspect the woman's corpse with a team of coroners. Truitt shows Detective Miles two small bumps on the woman's lower back. A trail of dried blood runs from the woman's nose to her mouth. Detective Miles recognizes the young woman as Karen Swenson, since she used to go to school with his son. As Miles walks away in a hurry, Truitt calls after him. The coroner asks whether the woman and the detective's son were in the high school class of 1989 together and implies that other members of her class have died in the same way as Karen Swenson. Act One FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, DC Special Agent Dana Scully enters the FBI building and reports to a receptionist. She then walks through a set of offices until she comes to Section Chief Scott Blevins' office. Inside, Blevins questions her about her past work while a mysterious man smoking a cigarette silently watches. Scully is a medical doctor who has been working within the FBI for a little more than two years. Blevins notifies her that she is being assigned to work with Fox Mulder on the X-Files, a group of cases that involve paranormal or inexplicable phenomena. On the building's basement, Scully meets Mulder in his office. Mulder shows her several slides of Karen Swenson's dead body and reveals that a strange organic substance has been found near the two marks on the woman's back. He also shows her two slides of bodies found in Sturgis, South Dakota and Shamrock, Texas, where both the two spots and the substance in the surrounding tissue were found. Although Mulder seems to believe that the cases are somehow linked to aliens, Scully argues that science will uncover a more logical explanation. Mulder tells her that three of Karen Swenson's classmates have also died in mysterious circumstances and states that he and Scully will leave to investigate the deaths early the next morning. On the airplane to Oregon, Scully looks at newspaper clippings about the dead teenagers. Suddenly, the plane starts to shake violently, but the pilot eventually manages to regain control of the craft. After the flight, Mulder drives a rental car into Bellefleur, Oregon as Scully reads the relevant X-File. She is surprised to learn that the case has already been investigated, information that Mulder did not disclose. He explains that the FBI became involved after the first three deaths, but left one week later without explanation. According to Scully, no unidentified marks are noted in the autopsy reports of the first three victims, although those reports were signed by a different medical examiner than the latest victim. Mulder is impressed by Scully's theory, but adds that they won't know whether the original medical examiner is a suspect until they have exhumed one of the first three bodies. The agents will likely then have a better idea whether the examiner intentionally missed the strange marks, or if Karen Swenson was the first victim with the spots. Suddenly, the car's radio powers up and the agents hear a high-pitched noise. Mulder stops the car and uses an aerosol from the luggage compartment to spray a large "X" on the road directly behind the vehicle. When he returns to the car, Mulder states that the incident was probably only trivial. COASTAL NORTHWEST OREGON MARCH 7, 1992 When the agents arrive at their destination, they meet with John Truitt and an assistant coroner. The group begins to discuss arrangements for the exhumation but are interrupted when another car arrives and the medical examiner who autopsied the first three bodies steps out. The examiner, Doctor Jay Nemman, struggles to stop his daughter from interfering. Doctor Nemman, the County Medical Examiner, protests against the FBI's use of the cemetery. He also reveals that he and his family have just come back to Bellefleur after a recent holiday, which explains why he didn't conduct the autopsy on Karen Swenson. When Mulder mentions the tissue sample taken from the victim's body, Nemman believes that the agents are insinuating that he missed something in the original autopsies. Eventually, the man leaves at his daughter insistence. Mulder and Scully return to the gravesite and discuss Ray Soames, the third victim whose body they are exhuming. A crane lifts Soames' coffin out of the ground, but a harness attached to the vehicle suddenly breaks and the coffin rolls down a hill. Mulder runs toward the coffin, to see it has been broken open by the fall. Against Truitt's advice, Mulder opens the coffin to find a desecated, mummified body lying inside. The corpse is definately not human and Mulder demands that the coffin be resealed. Act Two 10:56 PM While examining the corpse, Scully determines that the body is familian - possibly an orang-utan or chimpanzee. Excited that the body may have been alien in origin, Mulder asks Scully to conduct a complete anaylsis of the corpse. Scully, who thinks that the presence of the body was someone's practical joke, reluctantly agrees to comply with Mulder's request. Later, Scully finds a small metallic implant in the body's nasal cavity. Mulder knocks at her door and asks if she wants to join him on a run. Scully tiredly declines. When Mulder wonders if she has identified the implant in Soames's nose yet, she replies with a negative answer and bids Mulder goodnight. RAYMON COUNTY STATE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL Mulder and Scully walk with Doctor Glass, who confirms that Ray Soames was a patient at the hospital. Glass claims that, under his supervision, Soames was treated for clinical schizophrenia for a year. According to the doctor, Soames appeared to suffer from a form of post-traumatic stress and couldn't grasp reality. Similar cases that Glass has treated have included several of Soames' classmates, two of whom are currently undergoing treatment at the hospital. The patients, Billy Miles and Peggy O'Dell, have lived in the hospital for four years. When Scully asks if she and Mulder can speak to them, Glass replies that the agents might have difficulty questioning the patients, especially Billy Miles. Inside the hospital, Billy lies in a bed unresponsive as Glass and the agents enter. The doctor explains that Miles is experiencing a waking comma as a result of a car accident on State Road in which Peggy O'Dell was also involved. Peggy sits in a wheelchair next to Billy Miles, reading to him. The doctor asks her if she will talk with the visitors but she replies that Billy wants her to read to him at the moment. When Mulder asks the doctor for permission to conduct a detailed medical examination of Peggy O'Dell, she throws her book down and starts wheeling around. A nurse approaches and tries to calm her, but she starts screaming as her nose begins to bleed. When she falls out of her wheelchair, Mulder takes the opportunity to lift up the back of her shirt, confirming his suspicion that she has the spots. He helps Glass to lift the girl back into her wheelchair shortly before Scully angrily rushes out of the room. Outside, Mulder hurriedly follows her down a flight of steps. He realizes that Scully is upset because she thinks he knows more about the strange marks than she does. Eventually, Mulder admits to his belief that the teenagers were abducted by extraterrestrials, a theory that Scully thinks is crazy. She comments that there must be another explanation which can be proved scientifically. Mentioning that all four victims were found in or near the woods, Scully wonders what they were doing there. At night, the agents walk through the forest where the latest victim died. They carry flashlights and are dressed in informal clothing. After they separate, Mulder looks at a compass he is carrying, which is spinning wildly. In the clearing where Karen Swenson died, Scully notices a patch of strange dirt on the ground. She picks up some of the dirt and puts it in her pocket. When a low rumbling begins, Scully removes a gun from her pocket and leaves the clearing. She approaches the source of the noise, where a light shines through the trees. A humanoid silhoutte from out of the light comes toward her. Act Three The silhoutte is actually Detective Miles. He doesn't reveal his name, but states only that he is employed by the County Sherriff's Department and warns the agents that they are on private property. They are forced to leave. Driving through a storm in the darkness of night, Scully shows Mulder the dirt that she gathered earlier. Mulder believes the dirt might be from a campfire, while Scully theorizes that the teenagers may have been part of a cult and that the man they just encountered is aware of that. Suddenly, there is a blinding flash of light and the car loses power. Mulder, who looked at his watch just before the incident, says they've lost nine minutes of time. Extremely excited, Mulder exits the car and discovers that they are almost exactly at the red cross he previously marked in the road. He excitedly explains to Scully that people who have sighted UFOs often report time loss. However, Scully argues that time can't just disappear as it is constant throughout the universe. Their car then restarts by itself and the headlamps light up. In her motel room, Scully writes her report, concluding that she cannot validate nor substantiate Mulder's claim that they experienced a loss of time. When the power goes out due to the storm, Scully begins to get ready to take a shower but notices two spots on her back. Worried that the spots may be the same marks that the teenagers had, Scully visits Mulder in his motel room, where he determines that the spots are only misquito bites. Scully is so relieved that she leans on Mulder's chest and he puts his arms around her. Later, Mulder tells her that his sister's disappearance when he was twelve tore his family apart. He continues by recalling that he left America as soon as he could and attended Oxford University, before being recruited by the Bureau. He then discovered the X-Files and became fascinated by them. He tells Scully that he has been trying to access classified government information, but someone at a higher level of power has been blocking him from doing so. The only reason Mulder has been able to continue his work is that he has made connections in Congress. He suspects Scully is part of an agenda to stop him, but she swears that she is not and tries to convince him to trust her. Mulder leans forward and tells Scully that a Dr. Heitz Werber has taken him through regression hypnosis to access his repressed memories of the night his sister disappeared. He adds that he can remember "a bright light outside and a presence in the room. I was paralysed, unable to respond to my sister's calls for help". Mulder believes that his sister was abducted by extraterrestrials and that the government is aware of the existence of the aliens. He also states that the only thing that matters to him is finding out whatever the government is protecting. Mulder then receives a strange phone call from an anonymous female caller, who says that Peggy O'Dell is dead. RURAL HWY. 133 BELLEFLEUR, OREGON When the agents arrive at the scene of the car accident that killed Peggy O'Dell, a driver tells Mulder that the girl ran in front of his car, despite normally being in a wheelchair. Scully takes a look at the girl's body. Her face is bloodied and her watch has stopped at the same time that the agents experienced time loss. Mulder tells Scully that the autopsy lab has been trashed and the body that the agents exhumed has been stolen. They leave the scene in the car they arrived in. Mulder and Scully return to their motel to find it has burnt down, along with all their files and photos. A terrified girl, Teresa Nemman, rushes up to the agents and asks for their protection. In a diner, Teresa speaks with Mulder and Scully. She reveals that she often finds herself in the woods with no recollection of how she got there. She fears that she might die, like most of her classmates. Mulder realizes that Teresa is the medical examiner's daughter and that she was the anonymous caller who told him that Peggy O'Dell had died. She admits that her father is covering things up and that she has the same spots as the other teenagers. Suddenly, her nose starts bleeding, moments before her father enters with the same detective who warned the agents to leave the forest. Mulder and Scully learn that the detective is Billy Miles' father and are unable to stop the men from taking Teresa home. Scully thinks the medical examiner and the detective are aware of the murderer's identity and are responsible for the destruction of the autopsy lab and the agents' motel rooms. However, she is unsure as to the reason the corpse was stolen if the men are indeed responsible. Mulder and Scully go to the cemetary but discover that the bodies of the other two victims have also been exhumed. Mulder suddenly realises the killer's true identity - Billy Miles, the boy in the hospital. Act Four 5:07 PM Scully can hardly believe what Mulder is suggesting, but he claims that recent strange events, such as Peggy O'Dell dying at exactly the same time that he and Scully lost nine minutes, fit the profile of alien abduction. Mulder theorizes that tests were being conducted on the victims that left the marks found on their backs but the experiments caused a genetic mutation, explaining the disfigured body in Ray Soames' coffin. In regard to the loss of nine minutes that he and Scully witnessed, Mulder believes that convential time stopped and that an alien impulse, which also caused Billy Miles to take the victims into the forest, actually took control of time itself. Scully laughs almost hysterically with Mulder, finding his theory preposterous but believing it nevertheless. In an attempt to confirm or disprove their suspicions, Mulder and Scully return to the hospital where Billy Miles is undergoing treatment. Although his nurse claims that his mental condition has rendered him incapable of walking, Scully shows Mulder dirt on the soles of the boy's feet. She takes a sample of the dirt shortly before she leaves the room with Mulder. Outside, Scully claims to be certain that Billy Miles was in the same forest as the victims. She explains that the dirt she has just discovered matches the strange earth she found in Collum National Forest earlier. Unfortunately, the sample of strange earth was destroyed in the motel fire so the agents decide to return to the woods. Background Information Introductory Details *This is the first episode of The X-Files. The initial episode of a series is usually called a "pilot", which is how this episode got its name. *The usual opening credits, accompanied by theme music by Mark Snow, are missing from this episode. *The episode starts with the notice, "THE FOLLOWING STORY IS INSPIRED BY ACTUAL DOCUMENTED ACCOUNTS." Although The X-Files are not directly based on true stories, elements of the episodes have been taken from true-life accounts. The notice preceding this episode is there simply for effect. From Script to Screen *The original script of this episode includes a scene in which Mulder and Scully literally howl at the moon. *In the original script, a Special Agent named Lake Drazen is present at the meeting near the start of the episode, having chosen Scully for an assignment to evaluate the validity of Mulder's work. Drazen explains, "I knew you would be rigorous. And fair." After leading Scully downstairs to the basement and introducing her to Mulder, Drazen watches the slide-show presentation Mulder makes regarding the deaths in Bellefleur. Drazen later appears in the scene where Scully is debriefed, in which the senior FBI agents decide to let Scully continue monitoring Mulder until they come up with something concrete with which to shut down the X-Files. One of the high-ranking agents says, regarding Scully's report, "If Congress got a hold of this we'd expend all our energy chasing ghosts and spacemen." Subsequently, Drazen tosses the copies of Scully's report into an incinerator. His final scene seems to suggest that his character later became Smoking Man. *A scene cut from the final episode introduced the character of Scully's boyfriend, Ethan Minette. In a scene that follows the slide-projector scene, Minette and Scully meet. Scully tells her boyfriend that she will have to cancel holiday plans she made with him as she has been assigned to a case outside Washington D.C. with Fox Mulder. Minette recognizes the name and tells Scully that "Spooky Mulder" supposedly convinced an Iowa Congressman to sponsor a UFO project. According to Minette, "It was a big joke around town a year ago". Scully asks if he would be willing to go on a holiday the weekend after she returns and Minette accepts. In the first draft of the script, Minette is a lobbyist and meets Scully in an "upscale Washington D.C. bar". In the filmed version of the scene, Minette is working in a television studio when they meet. In both versions, he is distracted by his work. *In the original ending, Scully's boyfriend is lying next to her in bed in the scene where she recieves a phone call from Mulder. After she puts down the phone, Minette asks "Anybody important?" Scully replies, "Just work". *In the first draft of the script, Mulder insists that Scully drives. In the scene where their car loses power as the agents drive from the forest, the "time loss" is originally only three minutes. When the car starts up again, Mulder "leaps up like a guy in a Toyota commercial". Also in the first draft of the script, Dr. Neuman (the county coroner, later to become Dr. Nemman) had performed an abortion on Peggy O'Dell (the girl in the wheelchair) the same summer that the teenagers had graduated from high school. Peggy said the father was Billy Miles (the boy in the hospital). According to Dr. Neuman's daughter (just prior to the famous nosebleed), "Billy disappeared right before graduation and he didn't come back until almost the end of the summer. Peggy said he got her pregnant, but no one believed her because he wasn't even there... No one was supposed to know. She had an abortion but there was no baby. There was something else. He said it's because Peggy had the marks". In-Jokes *Script sources reveal that this episode was originally to be set in Bellefleur, Louisiana, but the setting was changed to Bellefleur, Oregon before the episode was filmed. Creator Chris Carter was born in Bellflower, California and the setting is a reference to his hometown. *David Duchovny's father can be seen sitting behind Scully on the plane to Oregon. *Scully's autopsy of the strange corpse found in Ray Soames' coffin begins at 10:56, a reference to Chris Carter's birthday - 10/13/56. *Near the end of the episode, Scully's clock reads 11:21. Chris Carter's wife, Dori Pierson, was born on 11/21/48. Cultural References *In one scene, Mulder knocks on Scully's door and jokingly claims to be Steven Spielberg when she answers. Spielberg is a celebrated movie producer and director. He is the most financially successful motion picture director in history and many of his films are generally considered to be all-time classics. Nitpicks *When Scully first walks into Mulder's office, she gazes at the walls. A close-up shows his "I Want to Believe" poster in full view. In the next shot, however, she is seen walking past the poster, which is now partially hidden by papers stacked in front of it. *In the slide projector scene, Mulder shows Scully the molecule found in the strange spots on Karen Swenson's back. The diagram shows "R" groups hanging off to the left, a symbol that denotes any group of atoms. Therefore, the chemical isn't necessarily unique at all. Mulder and Scully seem bewildered to have never encountered the chemical before, but there are many different chemicals that exist. The fact that they had never seen it before doesn't mean that the molecule is special, or unique, in any way. *Also in that scene, Scully claims that the molecule looks like a protein. In reality, however, a molecular diagram of a protein looks nothing like the diagram Mulder shows her. Other Episode Notes *Series creator Chris Carter had to pitch the idea for the pilot episode, and the series, twice before 20th Century Fox allowed him to produce the pilot. *The episode was filmed in fourteen days during March 1993. *According to Chris Carter, early screenings of the pilot proved positive. He was extremely pleased with overwhemingly positive reactions of test audiences and Fox executives. *Chris Carter was also pleased with the episode himself, and was particularly proud of the scene where Scully visits Mulder in her nightgown, anxious about two misquito bites on her back. He believed the scene was a key moment to help establish the platonic nature of their relationship, a certain connection that he was trying to create between the two characters. *When he saw the pilot episode, writer Glen Morgan perceived, and was impressed by, a merging of the films Silence of the Lambs and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He also liked the unresolved ending, believing it was unusually scary for a television programme at that time. The episode inspired him to join the series with writing partner, James Wong. *Writer Howard Gordon was similarly impressed by the pilot and thought it set the tone of the series very successfully. He later wrote several episodes with partner Alex Gansa. *Daniel Sackheim, who served as producer on this episode, also directed "Deep Throat", "Conduit" and the Season 2 episode, "The Host". He would later return as producer to work on The X-Files Movie. *In 1994, Director of Photography Thomas Del Ruth was nominated for the ASC Award of the American Society of Cinematographers for his work on this episode. Continuity *Section Chief Scott Blevins reappears in "Conduit", but does not appear again until the 4th Season episode, "Gethsemane". From the end of the first season, Walter Skinner replaces Blevins as the main boss character. *Heitz Werber, the psychologist who conducts Billy Miles' hypnosis near the end of this episode, is the same doctor who supervised Mulder's own regression. He appears again in the fifth season episode, "Patient X". *The scene near the end of this episode in which Scully recieves a phone call from Mulder is copied at the end of "The Erlenmeyer Flask". *Mulder and Scully mention the nine minutes they lose in this episode in "Tempus Fugit", another episode in which nine minutes are lost. *Implants, and spontaneous nose bleeds, become a recurring theme later, featuring most prominently in "The Blessing Way" and "Memento Mori". *Mulder and Scully return to Bellefleur, Oregon in the Season 7 episode, "Requiem", in which Teresa Nemman, Billy Miles and his detective father also appear. *Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and the Cigarette-Smoking Man are the only characters to appear in both this episode and "The Truth", the final episode of the series. Links and References Guest Stars *Charles Cioffi as Section Chief Scott Blevins *Cliff Deyoung as Dr. Jay Nemman *Sarah Koskoff as Teresa Nemman *Leon Russom as Detective Miles *Zachary Ansley as Billy Miles *Stephen E. Miller as Coroner Truitt *Malcolm Stewart as Dr. Glass *Alexandra Berlin as Orderly *Jim Jansen as Dr. Heitz Werber *Ken Camroux as Third Man *Doug Abrams as Patrolman #1 *William B. Davis as Smoking Man *Katya Gardner as Peggy O'Dell *Ric Reid as Asst. Coroner *Lesley Ewen as Receptionist *J.B. Bivens as Truck Driver References abductee; autopsy; Bellefleur; Collum National Forest; South Dakota; FBI; Oregon; Oregon Psychiatric Hospital; Raymon County; Shamrock; Soames, Ray; Spielberg, Steven; Sturgis; Texas; UFO Category:X-Files episodes